This is the time of year when we seek warmth and light, when we express our gratitude for all that is right with the world and wish one another tidings of comfort and joy.

There’s room for all of that — and for a few critical barbs too. Everyone knows it’s more fun to voice our complaints about what should have been better in the year about to end.

While we’ve been busy devising our Top 10 lists of wonderful cultural achievements of the year and of the decade (see Sunday’s Denver Post), we haven’t yet gotten around to charting the biggest cultural disappointments, the most obvious artistic failures and most flawed creative attempts.

Time now to pummel the worst offenders of 2009. Ready your fruitcakes:

10. “Accidentally on Purpose.”A bitter disappointment, but not for the reason the Parents Television Council would claim. They hated the premise, but the real problem was that this comedy represented a serious misuse of talent, putting Jenna Elfman in the role of a knocked-up cougar. It would have been awful anyway, but the series wasn’t helped by the fact that the season debuted another show about cougars that was actually funny.

9. Jon and Kate, with or without their Eight. The original TLC reality fare was bad enough; once the rest of the media piled on, reporting as “news” the twists and turns of the couple’s domestic antagonisms, the airwaves were flooded with Gosselin gossip. After 10 years of marriage and a gold mine for the cable network, they’re finally divorced. Don’t care now, didn’t care then. Please, keep them off the air in 2010.

8. Michael Jackson media overkill. The initial story of the artist’s death was news; the attendant speculation was unfortunate. From there, the saturation coverage pushed legitimate international news stories off the air. The subsequent weeks of sidebar interviews (Larry King yammering with anyone and everyone) were unseemly. Did it all add up to a sad commentary on the amazing global power of American popular culture? Or was it just a way to score ratings?

7. “The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty.” The reality show (in production before Michael’s death) is further evidence that the exploitation of a talented musician did not end with his demise. Shame on A&E, shame on the family.

6. “Kath & Kim.” Not just bad, but a mishandling of what was originally a funny Australian import. The concept of a dysfunctional mother-daughter pair should have played better.

5. “Hank.” The Kelsey Grammar flop was painful to watch, a bad misuse of genuine talent.

4. “The Jay Leno Show.” Mediocrity has its place, but did that place have to spread across every night of NBC’s prime-time schedule? The cost-cutting move not only sank NBC’s ratings this season, but it also likely damaged the prospects of developing truly great television in the future, with one fewer broadcast network encouraging smart, scripted prime-time drama.

3. “Jersey Shore.” Not because it reveled in reality show cheesiness and bad behavior (that’s a given) but because it shoved ugly stereotypes in our faces. No wonder the local Italian-American service organization is upset. Sadly, this outmoded spectacle drew bountiful ratings for MTV.

2. “Brothers.” Someone, please, rescue the talented CCH Pounder from this mess! Fox won’t renew this low- brow comedy, but the insult to the audience’s intelligence is already done.

1. The Heenes. For the time they wasted, for the collective angst they caused, and mostly for the cynical reason they misled the public, the authorities and the media. True, the media in some cases contributed over-wrought emotions without journalistic restraint. But the blame begins with the Colorado family that launched the whole “balloon boy” fiasco.

To all those misfires, say humbug!

And now, here’s hoping 2010 brings more creative successes than failures. There will be reality TV excesses, of course, and lousy shows that don’t deserve our time. But January will also bring a grab bag of promising new entertainments.

If there’s one superhero character whose rise might be most tied to the events of World War II, it is Captain America, who emerged from the minds of legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and sprung forth from an iconic 1941 debut cover on which Cap smacks Hitler right in the kisser.